The Big Picture

[OzzyKP]

Let me know if you disagree, but I think it is important to decide fairly early on what kind of game we are playing. What style will we adopt, what is our end game plans, etc. That can help us figure out our civ, the settings, what wonders we go for, and guide us through the whole game, so probably better to decide on it soon.

Some options (no doubt y'all will suggest many more):

- Rush our neighbor early on?
- Choke our neighbor early on?
- Plan to take a militaristic/warmonger path?
- Run a specialist economy?
- Focus on espionage?
- Focus on expansion?
- Focus on wonder building?
- Go for an early religion?
- Stay peaceful, build the spaceship?
- Stay peaceful, try for a cultural victory?

[Calanthian]

* The economy first approach. Limited choking, without war (carefull diplomacy).
* Contingency approach: choose early strategy based upon civ and leader characteristics, land area, and starting techs.
* Decide early on where we want to borders to be: from a defensive and resource point of view.

[Calanthian]

PS. Check this thread out: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/s...?t=4387&page=3

Now it is clear to me why they want to get rid of all chance related items: this is the accountant approach to civving..

of course strategizing, optimizing and economizing are key elements to good civving,
but calculating to the hammer 30 to 40 turns ahead is a bit much.

I think we have a more creative, flexible approach..

[Calanthian]

* The main discussions:
- slave economy or not.
- how far do we go with chopping: (A) chopping for everything early on especially settlers, (B) chopping for wonders, (C) chopping for maximum hammer bonus per tile (taking into account city bonusses)

[OzzyKP]

* The economy first approach. Limited choking, without war (carefull diplomacy).
* Contingency approach: choose early strategy based upon civ and leader characteristics, land area, and starting techs.
* Decide early on where we want to borders to be: from a defensive and resource point of view.

I think strategy should come first and dictate which civ/leader we want.

* The main discussions:
- slave economy or not.
- how far do we go with chopping: (A) chopping for everything early on especially settlers, (B) chopping for wonders, (C) chopping for maximum hammer bonus per tile (taking into account city bonusses)

Maximizing the benefits of slaving & chopping is one part of my game I've never planned out very well. I generally tend to hold on to forests much longer then others do and lay off the whip. So I'll let you and mzprox and others figure out the best approach to take with this. I defer to others.

[Calanthian]

I am also a light chopper (in most cases)
> as keeping forests allows for bigger cities (health bonus) and more hammers.

My general approach is to get some bigger cities to get tech really going. And at a certain point go for steamroll expansion (at the point that the cities don't grow fast anymore >> then go for settlers (and workers)). If this moment coincides with having courthouses, all the better.

[Ben Kenobi]

Is it possible to rush them quickly with military? They can't settle down and plan if we aren't giving them breathing space.

[Calanthian]

If we get barbarians in, then it is also settled

[mzprox]

I don't really want to risk an early rush, if not necessary. Ok you kill one opponent, but the others get ahead.
My focus in all my games is teching. Teching on a similar path which makes my research even faster and let me grab bonuses (great persons, great wonders etc)
In my SP games Pyramid was always a key wonder for great succes. In MP games I don't even try to grab it, instead I go and grab constitution with liberalism (not in G&H tough.. lost the race with one turn, and only because my stupid war with Thracia ).

Anyway, too early to speak about general strategy, much depends on leader, map etc.. Generally I can say that slaving is almost a must. About chopping: I'm one who don't builds too many workers, I usually have 1-1,5 for two cities- this is balanced by don't letting my cities grow big (constant slaving), and specialists.
I don't believe that specialist and cottage economy can be effectively separated, aciv needs cottages and specialist too, both have advantage and even if the civic choice is not optimal for any of these economies still worth to have both cottages and gp farms.

If we choose our leaders we can talk about what kind of leader do we want.
Godd traits:
Fin, Ind, Phi, Spi, Cre,

My personal favorite is the phi trait, I usually don't build earlywonders with it ( don't want to lose to Ind. civs), but slave/chop libraries very early and generate 2-3 GS fast (academy and the rest are settled- I never bulb, even if it had advantage)

With Phi I like fin, spi, cre all have their advantages.

The strongest leader in mp games is considered to be the Inca guy, fin/ind. a strong choice indeed.

[OzzyKP]

I assume we will be picking our civ/leader, so we should pick someone who fits our strategy. If we want to priortize wonders, then IND is of course smart. Prioritizing a specialist economy, then PHI, prioritizing military, AGG or CHA, etc.

Based on recent/current games mzprox seems to be the strongest techer among us, what he does with slaving/specialists seems to be working quite well. Perhaps a PHI leader would be good.

[Calanthian]

My preferences:

1) Elizabeth, Phi Fin, redcoat, stock exchange >>>> don't need to say more

2) Pericles, CRE PHI >>> great for teching!
Willem van Oranje, CRE FIN, dike >>>> good early, very good late game, rich
Kublai Khan, CRE AGG, Keshik, Ger >>>> possibility to rush, but also good in growth strategies: versatile

3) Huana Capac, IND FIN >>>> good

4) Charlemagne, HR Empire >>>> good on big maps, great in combination with corporations
(low maintenance)

[OzzyKP]

2) Pericles, CRE PHI >>> great for teching!
Willem van Oranje, CRE FIN, dike >>>> good early, very good late game, rich
Kublai Khan, CRE AGG, Keshik, Ger >>>> possibility to rush, but also good in growth strategies: versatile

I've never seen creative as particularly strong. Why is CRE/PHI better for teching then say ORG/PHI or SPI/PHI? Just because of the cheap libraries?

Personally I'm a big fan of the Spiritual trait. The ability to adjust civics for any situation and harness the best out of them can be very powerful if used properly.

[Calanthian]

Pericles has cheap lib and cheap uni, and great GP production.. and strong early unit

[DNK]

Yeah, RB are huge, monstrous micronits, and extremely skillful it seems. I don't mind doing a bit of that myself, but they take it to an extreme... That said, it might help the forum to practice a little micronittery at the outset - what else do we have to do?

That said, we need to start checking out our other neighbors now. I've read oodles of pages of RB's forums, though I suspect others are more experienced on them. What do we know about the other forums' tendencies? Any Polish/Spanish speakers here? What's CFC like? We should get a basic playstyle guide going for each forum (though that might be impossible).

***

I think avoiding early war and aiming for a solid econ and REXing is good always and quite adaptable. I think we need to watch it on wondering, though, as those attract a lot of attention, and I know our captains, Ozzy and Cal, happen to be the "wonder whores of babylon" (no offense, but that's a good way to put it, eh) on that one, though perhaps that's just my anti-wonder opinion. Point being, if we have a solid econ and then get GLH and GLib, we're going to get dogpiled sooner or later, even if we think we're on good terms with our neighbors.

And this is my concern - we have a bunch of "wonder 'lovers'" as our lead players right now (and, yes, it works very well for economy, a good part of the reason I'm always a step behind you 3 in games generally), and I'm going to go on record saying that it's not necessarily going to work here unless we have weaker/passive players on our borders. This strategy, imo, needs to be decided once we're in-game and know who we have to deal with directly. As such, IND locks us into the approach way too much for my liking. We can get in-game, find we've got RB and another aggressive team on our flank, and find our IND trait all but useless, while we wished we had CRE or PHI instead.

***

Really, no war, no choking if we can. Just get on good terms with our neighbors and do what we can to keep on good terms. Find ways to be symbiotic if we can and work to integrate with better neighbors - build at least one border alliance, something with unit sharing or something involved that lets us specialize somehow, requiring reliance on each other - that's the only way to really ensure security in the long-term. If we have a weak neighbor, aim for a late Classical attack but keep them friendly until then. This is the ideal, imo, and a plan for success for sure. Great if we can get a neighbor that wants to do an Espy econ with us, assuming we can trust them well with all the info they get... No rushes, though if we catch someone totally off-guard...

***

Chopping - my style is to chop early and often for expansion. On that, we can have the discussions when we have a solid, specific scenario in the game. I aim for 1.5 workers/city usually. I know Ozzy happens to hate workers for some reason (and lighthouses), but they do have a purpose...

***

For leaders - I started this discussion when talking about ORG/toroidal in the other thread. Basically, the sort of map and number of opponents ought to decide it. PHI will almost certainly be useful, as will FIN. If the map's toroidal and if Espy is left on, ORG might take on more prominence. We need a leader that goes well with the civ we choose, too, so I don't just want to pick the leader first. Again, let's wait and see what we're working with in terms of map, players, neighbors(?) and then choose a good, synergistic group of leader-civs that will likely be available when we get to our pick.

[mzprox]

My preferences:

1) Elizabeth, Phi Fin, redcoat, stock exchange >>>> don't need to say more

2) Pericles, CRE PHI >>> great for teching!
Willem van Oranje, CRE FIN, dike >>>> good early, very good late game, rich
Kublai Khan, CRE AGG, Keshik, Ger >>>> possibility to rush, but also good in growth strategies: versatile

3) Huana Capac, IND FIN >>>> good

4) Charlemagne, HR Empire >>>> good on big maps, great in combination with corporations
(low maintenance)

I consider Elizabeth to be the strongest leader for my playstyle, but Gandhi and Pericles are also very strong.
if this happen to be an always war gaem then phi leaders are even stronger (since we should run in mercantilism).
If we play unrestricted then we can consider choosing the aztecs. I've never played with them, but the sacrifial altar seems very strong.